Good Foods for the Skin

Different websites are touting the benefits of eating right on your skin to prevent wrinkles and retain that youthful glow. I have a friend who at 50, looked AMAZING and actually looked like she was 40. She credited this youthful, wrinkless, glowing complexion to eating right, drinking plenty of water and taking many supplements. Either her genes were very good and/or the lifestyle was working because she looked incredible.

Lycopene from processed tomatoes provides a great source of an anti-oxidant and also helps to ward off cancerous cell formations. Lycopene, in high doses, flush out free radicals. Since lycopene is not made in the body, we require products such as tomatoes to acquire it.

“Researchers introduced Lycopene into pre-existing cancer cell cultures and the Lycopene prevented the continued growth of these cultures. This is pretty powerful evidence that the health benefits of eating a tomato are really quite phenomenal. It takes as little as 540 milliliters of liquid tomato product to get the full benefits of Lycopene. This means that a daily glass of tomato juice has the potential to keep a person healthy for life.”

Oysters provides zinc which provides that nice little feature of repairing and renewing our skin called collagen. As we age, we lose that ability.

Blueberries prevent cell damage by also being a source of an anti-oxidant. In 2004, a team led by a USDA chemist found that this natural anti-oxidant may lower blood levels of LDL which is the “bad” cholesterol and triglycerides. The pterostilbene in blueberries is similar to the chemical Resveratrol found in grapes. Another claim for blueberries as an antioxidant is the benefit towards slowing down visual loss due to the extract from blueberries. It’s called anthocyanosides and has been found in clinical studies to slow down visual loss.

”A recent study was done in a Boston laboratory by putting one group of young rats on a blueberry-rich diet and another on regular chow. Then the scientist exposed both groups to 48 hours of concentrated oxygen, stirring up in two days the amount of free radical damage that normally takes 20 rat months, or 75 humans to accumulate. Brain cells in the chow group became less responsive to neurotransmitters associated with short-term memory. The brains of the blueberry stuffed rats did not change. He also found that the fruit prevented the kind of short-term memory loss that comes with aging. Blueberries actually stave off declines in brain cell’s ability to send messages to one another.”

Dark chocolate has many benefits to include providing yet another anti-oxidant source. It increases blood flow to the skin which rehydrates the skin and provides additional sun protection.

Walnuts provides omega-3 and vitamin E which is a natural way to ward off psoriasis and eczema. Omega-3 fatty acids also provide benefits ranging from better mental functioning to cardiovascular protection to an anti-inflammatory benefits in asthma.